A suggestion a day from the Williamsburg Regional Library

Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology

Have I said how much I like Victorian era ghost stories? These atmospheric tales seem to me the perfect autumn reading. The Victorians, as the editors here point out, had a fascination with death, and that extended to their fascination with the afterlife. Think about Arthur Conan Doyle, who invented that exceptionally rational detective Sherlock Holmes, but who also believed in the power of mediums to connect with the dead. It comes as no surprise that some of the best ghost stories written come from this death-haunted period.

Oxford University Press is known for its exceptional anthologies, and Victorian Ghost Stories is an excellent example of their work. The collection brings together a superb assortment of authors telling chilling tales published between 1852 and 1908. Some of the well-known suspects are here, the Jameses, Henry and M.R., Wilkie Collins, and Elizabeth Gaskell among others, but there were also lots of new authors I had not encountered before. I particularly enjoyed “At Chrighton Abbey” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, where ghostly hunters presage a tragedy at Christmas-tide. Or there is Charlotte Riddell’s “The Open Door,” where a young man makes his fortune by risking his life in an ostensibly haunted manor house. All of these tales create an atmosphere of suspense without resorting to cheap tricks or gory details. The Victorians really were masters of the uncanny.

These would be great stories to read aloud by candle light, or better yet the light of just a fireplace. Let the shadows start to dance on the wall, listen to the creaking as the house settles and the tree branches scrape and scratch, or is that just what you think you are hearing?

Absolutely love Victorian ghost stories, did a whole module on them while at university (especially Gaskell) before moving on to study the fairy tales – very interesting the way that they didn’t seem to fear death in the same way we do. I always seem to associate ghosts and chilling tales with this particular era…

I have a collection of Scottish Fairy Tales which I think is from Oxford Uni Press. I absolutely adore it. The editors do a great job of introducing readers to new writers and directions we may never have stumbled across on our own.

You’re so right that the Victorian style of building the right atmosphere is so much better than just throwing in gore for shock value. It takes real skill. The Victorians had creepy interests, but I’m so glad that the result is great stories for us to read today.